


If You Go Out to the Woods Today

by Anonymous



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Danger, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Inspired by Fanart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23361988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: ... You might get tackled to the ground by a fairy who has intense emotions. But there are worse things!(And they're waiting.)
Relationships: John Egbert/Vriska Serket
Kudos: 13
Collections: Homestuck Shipping Olympics 2011, anonymous





	If You Go Out to the Woods Today

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a round of the Ship Olympics where you made works inspired by HSO entries. Here's the art I riffed off: [Little Blue Hood](https://www.deviantart.com/razulude/art/Little-Blue-Hood-253577228).

* * *

  
  
When John took his first steps into the woods that day, he was smiling a little - a friendly look, grown familiar, though no less sweet.

Vriska melted forth out of a shadow and ignored further thoughts along that line. She narrowed her eyes, because that was also a _dumb_ look, basically a symbol for how much trouble he could get into on his own! Was he paying real attention to his surroundings, with the way he was getting distracted by looking at chirping birds?

Time for a test.

John was face-first on the ground in no time flat, picnic basket wobbling wildly a few metres away.

Vriska shook her head slowly and sadly, and then squeezed John's waist. "If I can take you by surprise, then you have not been preparing for the wolf-hunt at all!"

"Uh. Nope. No, I... Hello to you too, Vriska!"

John didn't raise his head to look back at her, but that was okay. He seemed to be wavering between annoyance and trying to pretend that she didn't exist, but from the way he was blushing he was _very bad_ at it.

She slowly unwrapped her arms from around him and stood. John rushed to his feet, brushing at his adorable all-blue outfit. The best colour! For the best human.

"I uh, I told you before, Vriska! About what Dad said, I mean." He looked around and went to pick up his basket. "That stuff about not going wolf-hunting alone, and that it's part of our responsibility to our families and villages to um, to, um, take care--as much as it is to keep everyone safe..."

He kept glancing at the hem of her dress. Human girls were silly to wear long skirts all the time! Vriska smugly flicked leaf fragments from her forearms where they'd been braced between John's body and the ground.

"John! We have been over this. Your dad thinks it's a normal wolf, but all of us knowledgeable forest folk are finding more and more clues that it isn't. What kind of young, healthy wolf gets this close to human villages when it isn't winter? How does it keep disappearing the way it does? We need to do something about it!"

"You sure don't look like you're--" Wow, his eyes could go wide, and desperate in a very interesting way. "I am going to Nanna's house!"

John turned and trotted away down the path, and Vriska ran that over in her mind as her insides clenched. ' _You_ don't look like' and ' _I_ am going to Nanna's house' - ' _you_ don't look like... And now I'm _going_.'

Did he not like the outfit?

"Come on," John said over his shoulder. "She'll be happy to see you, since she and your patron-grandma person are buddies, right? It'll be fun."

The game was still on!!!!!!!!

Vriska ran closer. "You said I don't look like something, John. Finish that thought!"

He stared straight at the path, even though it was a well-trodden one, cleared of leaves and stones by daily traffic to and from the village. "You don't really look like you're going to hunt a wolf in that dress."

"This way I'll take it by surprise!" She elbowed him. "It sure worked on you." 

"Oh yeah, that sounds like a great strategy. Um ... I haaaaaaaave been asking Rose to read stuff to me, since she's way better at reading. Stuff about hunting strategies..."

Vriska clenched her hands into fists, trying to control her smile, and then tucked her hair behind her ear. He listened. He always really listened to her, that was the thing. One of them, anyway, a boring one that she liked anyway. A lot.

"Then you and I need to work on applying that knowledge. I'm not saying we have to whip out the hounds and horns by the new moon or anything, even though we shouldn't waste time. I will definitely make sure you're prepared first."

"It's just - the wolf sightings do seem strange. Jade says it's nice that it hasn't hurt anybody, but that it is plain weird that it hasn't tried to get at any chickens. Rose also thinks it's weird. The grown-ups are starting to say it must be a dog that got out and went a little wild, but if you forest people are getting suspicious..."

"It's best to kill it. That's not a fairy trick!"

"I know, I know. You wouldn't."

She would. She kind of was tricking him a lot of the time. It was the nature of the Fair Folk. But…

"I don't go for the easy way out and pick killing as the first option anymore, either," Vriska said, hooking her arm around his free one. John stumbled and smacked the basket in his other hand into his leg hard enough to curse. "No matter what Mindfang says. It's just that it is the best option in this case."

"Your grandmother ... she's really pretty scary."

'And you're really pretty', followed by smooth wink and grin. But John didn't do that. _She_ would have thought of that line if the situation were reversed. She just had! Would she have to give him courting lessons as well as hunting lessons? (He hadn't pulled his arm away. And he was smiling. That was a good start.)

"She's taught me a lot," Vriska said. "So have you, though, and I'm keeping it in mind as much as her lessons."

John nodded. "Don't worry. I really do trust you. OK?"

She nodded back. It was best not to speak for a moment.

"It is nerve-wracking, though!" John sighed. "I haven't ever killed anything like that, without it being for food. I haven't hunted with the men yet since I'm too young."

"That's why I'm here to help."

He _smiled_ at her that way. All right, maybe he didn't need to use lines.

Soon, once they'd found the wolf, and if only she could get him to strike a killing blow rather than using a gun ... then even though he was a human, he'd at least have made a proper first kill. If the wolf really was a magical creature, then not even Mindfang would be able to say that John was ineligible for the marriage pursuit...

Ha, like Mindfang would care, given how tight she was with Nanna. She was supposed to act like she did, though, and she did love putting on a big act.

"So what's in the basket?" said Vriska, imperiously changing the subject.

"No grubs. Sorry. Should we look under some tree bark?"

"We have to stay on the path, John! Don't you listen to Dad? It gets dangerous to wander off!"

"I've got you with me, though." He laughed, elbowing her. "From what you say, that takes care of one of the most dangerous things in the forest!"

He always listened. " _Flatterer_." Vriska flushed.

Normally one of them would have said, about halfway to Nanna's house, that they should race. Today they walked arm in arm, a little slow all the way, listening to the rustles and chirps of the forest.

In the distance - but not too far - a howl lilted up to the noonday sun.


End file.
